"No polite disguise"

André Leon GrayAPRIL 26 - MAY 7, 2017 | THE CARRACK

Exhibition statement: In his first solo show at The Carrack, Raleigh native and resident Andre Leon Gray continues his creative momentum in the Bull City with a sledgehammer called "no polite disguise," an exhibition that is meant to challenge the viewer to see the world with an open eye: to question the historical and contemporary conditioning that influences our frames of reference and cultural perception of people with melanin.

As we have seen through mainstream media, the "post-racial" veil that covered malignant racism during the Obama years, which gave some people the ignorant notion that racism was a myth, has now been lifted from our collective eyes with the controversial campaign and the inevitable election of the 45th POTUS.

Andre digs deep into the conscience of America with assemblages, sculpture, installations, collages, and a short film to excavate some hidden thoughts to unpack--with no polite disguise.

Since the election, it’s like the veil of the idea that we were in a post-racial America has lifted [...] You see the violence and hate we show each other. The bandage has been ripped off and we’re seeing the hidden, simmering America.

— André Leon Gray

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André Leon Gray's exhibit on race in America isn't 'polite'

André digs deep into the conscience of America with assemblages, sculpture, installations, collages, and a short film to excavate some hidden thoughts to unpack—with no polite disguise. The most complex piece might be “Somebody said you are from nowhere. Is that true?” A meditation on knowledge and heritage, it manages to evoke the past, the present and the future with disparate items like an orange traffic cone in a school chair that mimics a dunce cap, a toy “Star Wars” fighter that plays a speech by Malcolm X, and a mathematical equation Gray created to express racial inequality. | Read more.